I am Hard on Ankles

About 6-8 weeks ago, I sprained my right ankle. I was out walking the dog in the still-dewy grass, turned my right ankle, and fell. I’ve turned that ankle a few times in recent years, and am convinced that I have a genetic structural instability – my dad’s a big ankle turner, too. Thankfully, I kept hold of the big scary dog’s leash, and she came over and licked my face while I decided whether I could just sit in the grass until Joel woke up, figured out I was gone, and came to find me. Eventually I hauled myself inside, where I proceeded to RICE but also to wait 3 weeks before seeing a doctor and starting physical therapy. Yeah, even with the mile+ walking every morning. I’m sensible that way.

one week post-sting

Cut to now. More than a week ago, I was stung on my left ankle by a wasp. Again, walking the dog. I cleaned it, applied a baking soda paste* and then ice, and the bite mark pretty much vanished. Except…4 or 5 days later I started having an area of increasing redness around the bite that was getting bigger and bigger… I finally went to see someone on Tuesday, after worrying that it might be infected and being advised that it could potentially be cellulitis. The provider who saw me agreed. I was running a fever, too.

after one day of antibiotics, with sharpie border

Normally, they’d just give the me penicillin and I’d be on my way, but I’m allergic. So we had to go through this whole routine:

“Can you take this antibiotic?”
“No.”
“How about this one?”
“No, I’m pretty sure I can’t.”
“How about this one?”
“Don’t know, never have.”
“What about this?”
“Yeah, that one’s okay, for sure.”
“Well, it’s kind of down the list for possible cellulitis. But we can try.”

Yeah, so I got the antibiotics and starting taking them. The red area is at least no longer getting bigger or any more swollen. Then the next day, yesterday, I ripped a callus off the back of my other ankle (the one I sprained) – again, walking the dog! I didn’t even notice until Joel saw that I was walking around the house bleeding everywhere. D’oh!

Rachel, I’m sorry you’re having such a rotten time with your feet/ankles. I used to badly twist/frequently sprain my ankles all the time. (I mean, to the point that, when I was only around 5, my mother would just give me ice and a pillow and say “you know what to do.”) Then in my teens I started dancing a lot, which somehow strengthened them. Go figure. But I used to dance barefoot a lot, and one night an also barefoot partner with a torn toenail, tore the callous on the ball of my foot. Which I didn’t realize. Until the DJ got on the mike and said “someone is bleeding all over the floor! stop it!” Which is all just to say that I hope your lower extremities stop giving you problems stat.